Category: News

Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green has been tapped to direct Freaks of the Heartland, an adaptation of the Dark Horse graphic novel from Steve Niles and Greg Ruth, for Overture Films. The screenplay was written by Peter Sattler and Geoff Davey. Green will produce alongside Dark Horse Entertainment president Mike Richardson, with Steve Niles executive producing.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 2004 limited series centers on "the horrible secret of a rural Middle American town involves Trevor Owen’s attempts to protect his ‘monster’ of a 6-year-old younger brother and Gristlewood Valley’s other ‘freaks’ from their parents’ worst instincts."

Overture Films is currently developing other genre movies Pandorum and a remake of George A. Romero’s The Crazies. Their most recent release was the Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro starring Righteous Kill.

Freaks of the Heartland is the second of Steve Niles’ graphic novels to be adapted for film. 30 Days of Night, arguably Niles’ most commonly known work, was released in 2007 by director David Slade. Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston and Ben Foster starred in the film.

Tonight, Spike will air their Scream Awards, which were handed out on Saturday night. In case you’d rather watch something else, here is a full list of winners:

THE ULTIMATE SCREAM                                                                             
The Dark Knight   

BEST FANTASY MOVIE
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

BEST HORROR MOVIE   
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

BEST SCIENCE FICTION MOVIE
Iron Man

BEST TV SHOW
Dexter

BEST SUPER-HERO
Christian Bale as Batman; The Dark Knight

BEST ACTOR IN A FANTASY MOVIE
Heath Ledger; The Dark Knight
 
BEST ACTOR IN A HORROR MOVIE OR TV SHOW OR TV SHOW
Johnny Depp; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

BREAKOUT PERFORMANCE
 WALL-E; WALL-E
 
BEST ACTRESS IN A HORROR MOVIE OR TV SHOW
Liv Tyler; The Strangers

BEST VILLAIN
 Heath Ledger as The Joker; The Dark Knight

BEST ACTRESS IN A FANTASY MOVIE OR TV SHOW
Angelina Jolie; Wanted

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE
 Gary Oldman; The Dark Knight

THE HOLY S***! SCENE OF THE YEAR
-he Big Rig Flips Over; The Dark Knight

MOST MEMORABLE MUTILATION
Bitten By Vagina With Teeth; Teeth

BEST SCREAMPLAY
The Dark Knight; Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan & David S. Goyer

BEST SCREAM TO COMIC ADAPTATION
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight

BEST SEQUEL
The Dark Knight

BEST DIRECTOR
Christopher Nolan; The Dark Knight

BEST REMAKE
Halloween

BEST ACTOR IN A SCIENCE FICTION MOVIE
Robert Downey Jr.; Iron Man

BEST ACTRESS IN A SCIENCE FICTION OR TV SHOW MOVIE OR TV SHOW
Milla Jovovich; Resident Evil: Extinction

BEST F/X
The Dark Knight

BEST COMIC BOOK
Y: The Last Man

BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE
 The Dark Knight

BEST COMIC BOOK ARTIST
Gabriel Ba; The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite

BEST COMIC BOOK WRITER
Grant Morrison; Batman, Final Crisis

MOST SHOCKING COMIC BOOK PLOT TWIST
The X-Men Disband After Professor X Is Shot In The Head By Bishop; X-Men

BEST LINE
"I believe whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger" (The Joker); The Dark Knight

“I’m gonna direct The Freshmen, which is a comic book that my friend Hugh Sterbakov and I created”, Seth Green told Moviehole.  “We have two graphic novels in the marketplace, and we conceived it as a feature.  But that’ll be the movie that I direct.”

“It is kids – it’s Revenge of the Nerds meets X-Men.  It’s kids in their first year of college, their first days of college, leaving the nest for the first time, awkwardly discovering their own identifies, trying to cast off all the things that have been placed on them throughout their scholastic career, and define their own identity in college.  And these kids are – you know, because of the overflow of the enrollment, they’re put into the science building, where they don’t even have permanent housing. And, you know, now this is a makeshift group they’re supposed to be best friends with, and they find themselves at a fraternity party where they are the butt of every joke and humiliated beyond their imagination.  And then they go back to the dorm and kind of mull over the notion of being trapped in this place for the next four years.  And then they are the victims of a scientific event, which gives them borderline useless superpowers.  So now in addition to being these outcasts of the outcasts, they are additi
onally alienated, with a physical deformity.”

The Top Cow series debuted in 2005 and has since seen two six-issue miniseries which have both been collected plus a Yearbook and most recently a Summer Vacation Special. Despite its success as a comic book, Green recognizes that he’ll need some help getting this turned into a film.

“You know, it’ll probably need a studio for release.  My estimation is to make this movie the way we want to make it, we’ll need independent financing.  But the nice thing about independent financing is, you know, a small-budget film is $35 million these days.  And that’s about what we’d need to make it”.

In supernatural sequel news, Seth Rogen spoke to Collider about his unofficial attachment to the newly speculated Ghostbusters 3. The film reportedly involves the original Ghostbusters recruiting a new generation of spook-stalking experts, allegedly played by Judd Apatow favorites — namely Rogen.

Asked if anyone has formally spoken to him about the film, Rogen replied: "No. Not at all."

"It’s hard to imagine that [Ghostbusters 3] would be good, isn’t it?" Rogen admits. "I mean just as a movie fan, I am the first guy to be skeptical of that. It sounds like a terrible idea when you first hear it. At first, hearing it sounds like the worst idea ever."

That doesn’t mean Rogen’s totally out on the idea, but it’ll take a lot to get the actor on board.

"[Ghostbusters 3] would have to be one motherf***ing good script," Rogen says. "There is a point where it’s so bad, it’s really easy to say no."

Click here to check out Rogen’s thoughts on other projects, including The Green Hornet.

In other news, if you ain’t afraid of no ghost, then maybe you’re afraid of zombies. At least you should be if it’s Paul W.S. Anderson zombies we’re talking about. The director of the Alien vs. Predator, Death Race and the Resident Evil trilogy wants to return for more zombie bashing fun.

"I’m writing an adaptation of the Long Good Friday right now, set in present-day Miami," Anderson tells the Sunday Sun. "Then I will probably write Resident Evil 4."

The most recent Resident Evil: Extinction concludes with series star Milla Jovovich’s Alice in an Umbrella Corporation facility filled with hundreds of her clones. Taking a cue from Neo in The Matrix, Alice then calls Umbrella executives to tell them she’s coming for vengeance with an army of herselves. Certainly sounds sequel worthy, eh? Eh?!

Zeljko Ivanek is joining the cast of Heroes for a multi-episode arc as The Hunter, a charcter debuting in the show’s fourth volume, Fugitives. Fugitives, the follow-up to the current Villains arc, is set to debut either in January or February 2009 with the season’s 14th episode.

According to Kristin at E! Online, "Since [Volume Four] is all about fugitives, the role of the Hunter sounds pretty key, don’t you think? Tommy Lee Jones has nothing on this newbie, from what I hear…"

Ivanek has made a career out of playing smarmy, villainous characters. He’s turned memorable performances as Andre Drazen on 24, Governor Devlin on Oz and Dr. Edmund Burke on Lost. Most recently, the actor won an Emmy award for his portrayal of Ray Fiske on FX’s Damages and will reprise his role as the tortured lawyer when the series returns for a second season in January.

With Ivanek’s character described as a "Hunter," the implication is that he’ll be tracking down super-powered individuals. Will he be on HRG’s side? Against him? With The Company, or with its rival Pinehearst? Either way, his presence is bound to complicate an already complex plot.

Heroes‘ current arc, Villains, has been met with higher critical acclaim than the second season Generations arc, despite a drop in ratings. What superpower will it take to bring viewers to the show? You tell us!

Welcome to Mixing it Up where breakout creators create things, break things, and hang out. Every week, David Gallaher experiences the world beyond comics to discuss the influences, hobbies, and thoughts of your favorite artists and writers. This week, David heads to Baltimore for a quick visit to the grave of Edgar Allan Poe and for drinks at the Inner Harbor with Sullengrey creator and Cthulhu Tales artist, Drew Rausch.

Baltimore gets deceptively chilly during October. Of course, not all the chills come from the strong breeze blowing over Chesapeake Bay … no, this is a chill that tingles your spine … and it’s a chill made real when you visit the grave of Edgar Allan Poe with Drew Rausch.

Drew is used to the chill though. He spends his days drawing all the things that go bump in the night. And, on a day like today, he’s already talking about ways to make the setting even more creepy.

"All we need now is a soundtrack. Something to make this a little more epic. Something from an Italian horror film would do nicely about now. Fulci? Or, maybe Dario Argento?"

With his hair buoyed by the chill of Charm City, Drew’s appearance would bring to mind the appearance of Cure frontman, Robert Smith, or perhaps Edward Scissorhands. And, while some are quick to label his work as gothic, it is a label Rausch rejects.

"I was never much into labeling. It’s just something the powers that be do to try and reach what they feel is the appropriate audience. For what I do, it’s art. Some will like it, others won’t. I try to incorporate a wide variety of influences from the spooky to the mundane. Granted, my everyday occasionally involves giant tentacles and flesh eating zombies."

"When we released the first mini series of Sullengrey, we were pigeon-holed into the whole spooky comic section of the comic store, which may have not been the best marketing, in my opinion. If you weren’t a fan of say Johnny the Homicidal Maniac or Lenore, you may have passed us by. But, we’ve been able to reach a broad audience through conventions just by people coming up and taking a peek at the trade." (more…)

IESB attended a press junket for the upcoming Malcolm Lee-directed Soul Men starring Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes. When asked if he’d be returning as Nick Fury for Iron Man 2, Samuel L. Jackson gave the thumbs up.

"Jackson replied that as a matter of fact, Iron Man director Jon Favreau spoke to him at the Scream Awards," reports IESB. "Favreau told Jackson that Nick Fury would have a much more prominent role in the second one."

The site is quick to point out that "[a prominent role] isn’t hard to accomplish considering he was relegated to the end of the film with a very short cameo."

Jackson later joked that he’ll make sure to sign a contract after Terrence Howard’s widely reported drop from the super-hero sequel. Don Cheadle will replace Howard as Jim Rhodes in Iron Man 2.

Later at the junket, Latino Review got the chance to ask Soul Men director Malcolm Lee if he’d ever be interested in working on a super-hero franchise. Lee replied that he’d love to direct an Iron Fist and Power Man dually headlined film. The two are commonly known to comic fans as Heroes for Hire.

"You got a white karate dude and a big blaxplotation dude," says Lee of the property. "I want it to be an action-comedy."

He described his desired tone for the movie as an aciton-comedy "in the vein of Bad Boys … as far as the comedy dynamic [goes] between [Luke Cage and Danny Rand.]"

While Lee wouldn’t talk about his ideal casting, there have been previous rumblings of a Tyrese Gibson starring Power Man and a Ray Park starring Iron Fist. Gibson reprises his role as USAF Tech Sergeant Epps in the upcoming Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, while Park will be seen next summer as Snake-Eyes in G.I. Joe.

Spawn is now a teenager in the world of monthly super-hero comics, sixteen years old and counting since 1992 when creator Todd McFarlane moved out of Marvel’s House of Ideas to help form Image and launch his own flagship title.

In 2008, Spawn is trying to reinvent itself and attract more readers and interest in an era when attracting new readers for superhero monthlies is a big hurdle for anybody.

In issue 185, due out on Wednesday, Todd McFarlane will return to the book with Whilce Portacio taking on main art duty to kick off a new storyline called “Endgame”. Brian Holguin, a Spawn veteran, will be working with McFarlane on story and script.

With promises of new directions and changing how people look at the book, issue 185 is its own milestone with three confirmed covers by Todd McFarlane, Whilce Portacio, and Greg Capullo, along with its own website that’s been teasing readers for the past few weeks.

As Spawn closes in on a major milestone of 200 issues, I had the opportunity to chat with McFarlane over the phone about his return to Spawn, where the book has been, and where it’s going.

ComicMix: Spawn 185 kicks off a new storyline called “Endgame”. What is “Endgame” about?

Todd McFarlane: It’s a jumping on point for readers to get in on the ground level and not have to have a lot of backstory. That’s it, just sort of saying “hey, we’re going to come in here and dust some stuff off and make it accessible and start pushing it and creating new stories and situations within the Spawn mythology that hopefully you haven’t seen in the first 184 issues.” 

CMix: Where do you want this new story arc to take the Spawn comic book and how does it fit into the overall story and mythology of those past issues?

TM: In the big mythology, it becomes sort of the next step in trying to neutralize the two big forces that have always been in the book which are Heaven and Hell. And again, the idea behind it has always been this man put in between these colossal forces. And is there a way for man to come out on top and not be beholden to any force? If you read the book, I’ve not made it a “good versus evil” in the classic sense of it and so we’ve said in the book and when people have asked, that in this mythology, Heaven and Hell are essentially the same thing; it’s just one guy has a better PR firm. But they both want the same thing: the souls and domination and to annihilate the other guy.

Which is why Spawn has not necessarily been about breaking away from Hell to go work for Heaven; he just wants to break away from it all and be a free man, pushing towards that big concept.
(more…)